Are We Trumped Up?

I'm aware. But I didn't know it was called Gitmo, I guess Guantánamo is a tricky word to remember. But why "it" in there? Ganmo would have made more sense if you ask me.

 

As a Canadian it truly feels like watching the Season Finale of Idiocracy... How did Americans vote for this fascist after everything he has done? He was literally on the record saying immigrants eat dogs and cats during the debate, and the lunatic still got elected. Unbelievable.

On a pessimist note, my opinion is we are entering a dark time in history. It's not just Donald Trump. This will be a dynasty, like the Bush and the Kennedy. When Trump is gone, assuming he doesn't find a way to stay in power (he said he would want to be president for life like Xi in China, and Republican senators are currently trying to amend the constitution to allow a 3rd mandate) then if it's not him one of his sons will just replace him. Trump's sons are as dangerous as him and they also have a lot of followers and are well-placed to become the next presidential candidate. Trump started a movement and went further than any president, America will never be the same again.

On a positive note, the dark times are when anarchism and radical activism shine. Take ANY revolution or any massive social movement in the history - they all happened when things were bad as fuck. Revolutions don't happen when you give people everything they want, when poverty doesn't exist and people don't feel oppressed. Revolutions happen when Tyrans take power and people lose their freedom. That's why I never believed in voting for the lesser evil. Just let the shit hit the fan and capitalism will self-destruct and fall. Reforms just prevent the inevitable and delay the revolution. I'm not some sort of crazy accelerationist but I feel like repairing capitalism is just helping the system to maintain itself.

There is a lot of historical data that confirms this theory. Take just this forum for example, and it's the same phenomenon for every single website we host. When Trump took power, traffic exploded on every activist website we host. It doubled then tripled at some point. People are angry and want to take action and get informed on what's going on. Then when Biden won, it was a quiet and boring 4 years. We didn't see as many protests as during Trump's first mandate. Even the Black Lives Matter movement nearly died. USA is a very polarized society and when far-right gain traction it only further divides the society and forces everyone to take sides, which is ironically good for our cause.

The exact same situation happened when the far-right almost took power in France. The activity on ALL our sites tripled overnight. Then we got the election result and everyone realized that the left coalition won. The traffic went back down to normal. This is not just a coincidence. When the right takes power, the left is more active in the streets. When the people get reforms, they go back home. Same shit happened here in Quebec in 2012 with the student strikes. It was the biggest strike we had ever seen. That was until a political candidate (Pauline Marois, PQ) ran with the promise to give students what they wanted (cancel the student fees increase). As soon as they won, students went back home and the protests stopped. Reforms killed the momentum. And everyone got scammed because they didn't even keep promises.

Now let's put back everything I just said into context - I am a Canadian and I was never faced with a situation like that. Even our worst far-right politician isn't even nearly as bad as Trump. There is no far-right candidate here, no MAGA movement, nobody that wants to deport millions of immigrants, and no political candidate that could be considered fascist. So to be honest, I have no fucking idea what I would do during an election if I was confronted with the reality of Trump taking power and deporting friends. I don't think I would have ever been able to vote for Biden. Kamala was a little better, but still very liberal. I'm not going to judge any of you if you voted for them. But there's a French saying that goes by "It's like choosing between plague and cholera", both will end up killing you but one might give you a little bit more time...

 

Side note: We have it in swedish as well, exactly the same words! "Det är som att välja mellan pest och kolera". We have a game that's called "Pest eller kolera" (Plague or cholera) where person 1 give person 2 two shitty options to choose from. Like "Plague or cholera: Never be allowed to go outside again or never be allowed to go inside again?" And then a heated debate on why the other person is wrong.

The last one I got was "Plague of cholera: Have 30 cm long hair that can't be cut off on every finger, or have a hairline that starts at the eyebrows", and I went with the former.